


By Wonders Divine

by Lilymoncat



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author is a nervous wreck about posting this, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Finding Yourself (and wishing you'd done so earlier), Friendship, incorporates stuff from DST, incorporates stuff from fannon, likely to be OC/Shipwreck heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:09:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilymoncat/pseuds/Lilymoncat
Summary: Clarence Barlow felt the need to extend an olive branch to the cousin he'd helped bully for years.  He wasn't expecting forgiveness, but he was going to do what was right and own up to his behavior.The trip to a world of pigmen, oversized fire spitting houseflies and ancient ruins was not what he expected to happen.





	By Wonders Divine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AileenRoseven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AileenRoseven/gifts), [Storm137](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storm137/gifts).



> Crossposted on my little used Tumblr: https://lilymoncat.tumblr.com/
> 
> I will admit to being nervous as all get out about posting this. This is my first time writing an AU linked to someone else's, and while I've asked for and been given permission to do so it's still a little nervewracking to put this out. Hopefully it's a good start.
> 
> And to AileenRoseven and Storm137, thank you for allowing me at least a chance to bring Clarence to life.

It was dusk when the Fiat 520 rumbled to a stop on the roadside and a young man got out. He reached into through the window and pulled out a lantern, taking a lighter out of his trenchcoat pocket to light the wick before holding it up to better illuminate his surroundings. The forest had seemed a bit… off in the sunlight, but now it held the makings of a horror film. Clarence Winston Barlow half expected to see some horrifying creature gliding inexorably towards him, intent on his life and soul. Or something similar to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’s Monster. He lifted his lantern a little higher, blowing a lock of auburn hair out of amber eyes.

“Seriously, Cousin Wilson? This is not going to help things…” Then the house itself came into view. Ramshackle would be a polite way of describing it, dilapidated much closer to the truth. Clarence practically felt his skin crawl at the idea of entering the place, let alone living there. Then again, it was somehow precisely the kind of place his mind had pictured his cousin Wilson living in. He took a deep breath.

“Courage, Clarence, courage. You can do this. You can apologize for years of being an ass and a bully.” Clarence laughed and shook his head. “And now I’m talking to myself. Just great.” He went up the steps that creaked alarmingly under him and knocked. After a bit, he frowned and knocked again. A bit longer and Clarence raised his hand for a third and harder knock. The door swung open beneath it, and Clarence felt a trickle of alarm.

“Wilson? Cousin?” His lantern’s light fell on thick dust and withered flowers, spiderwebs thick enough to be used for curtains trailing from the ceiling. Clarence ventured in, closing the door behind him. The place seemed deserted but surely Wilson would have at least informed his mother if he’d moved, and this was where Cecelia Higgsbury had sent him.

“Wilson? Wilson answer me God dammit!” Clarence reached the stairs and started to ascend them. He’d known Wilson had been having problems recently, had heard the whispers. Had one of Clarence’s siblings or another of their cousins had Wilson carted off to an asylum? Clarence prayed they hadn’t. He’d gone with Aunt Cecelia on one of her visits to her husband in one of them once. It had left an impression, and later he’d heard tales that made him realize he hadn’t seen a fraction of what those monsters calling themselves doctors were capable of doing to the people committed to their ‘care’. Death was a kindness compared to that.

“WILSON PERCIVAL HIGGSBURY, YOU’D BETTER NOT BE DEAD SOMEWHERE IN HERE!” Still resounding silence, then for a second Clarence thought he heard something. He paused and tried to listen to something other then his own beating heart, cursing his partial deafness. Was that a low buzzing sound? Was there a beehive in the walls or something?

CRACK! Part of the step gave beneath him, causing Clarence to stagger and drop his lantern to try and steady himself against the wall. His hand hit a picture frame and the glass in it shattered, causing him to curse as it slashed across his palm. He dug into his coat pocket and flicked the lighter he’d used for the lantern on, looking at the streaks of blood he’d left across his cousin’s portrait.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all…” Clarence continued up the stairs, looking about the upper floor. There were two doors, the first of which lead to a bedroom that was a few steps shy of a pigsty, but had no Wilson in it. Steeling himself, Clarence opened the second one.

It seemed to be half inventor’s workshop, half alchemist’s laboratory. Mechanical bits and bobs lay strewn amongst empty beakers and vials. Heavy books that seemed like they could be esoteric or engineering lay where they had been thrown in a frenzy of creation. In the middle of the room was a contraption with a lever and before it, almost as if it had been negligently thrown aside, was a knife. Clarence took a few steps forward and knelt down.

“Wilson? Wilson what in God’s name have you done?” Clarence glanced back up at the machine, noting the oddities in it that almost resembled a face. The lever was almost in his reach from where he was, he just had to reach out…

He stopped his hand inches from grasping it.

“What in Hell’s name?” Clarence shook his head, trying to clear the foggy feeling that had developed in it. Why had he reached for the lever? Knowing some of Wilson’s more spectacular engineering ‘failures’, why would he be stupid enough to set off an unknown machine? Then Clarence noticed something else. The buzzing was back. Louder.

Right behind him.

Clarence turned and threw up his arm as something crashed into him, a droning scream like an enraged swarm coming from it. In the dim light he couldn’t see it well, but there was something wrong about it. It’s face seemed to writhe, sometimes almost humanlike, sometimes something with a snapping beak or gaping maw. Clarence reached frantically with his free and still bleeding hand, searching for the knife. Trails of black ran down the thing’s face and splashed onto his own, burning where they struck like acid. A drop fell into his mouth as his hand finally closed around something, tasting like oil and cough syrup. Clarence hacked desperately, trying to get the taste out of his mouth and the thing got a hand on his free arm, shoving it down.

As things just outside of Clarence’s field of vision began somehow grabbing hold of him and the thing, he realized he’d grabbed hold of the lever after all. It was his last conscious thought for quite awhile.

*

“Hmm, what’s this? An actual false alarm?” Maxwell looked about at the area he’d thought he felt someone arrive in, bag dangling from his fingers. It was an unusual and dense combination of three kinds of berry bushes and thorn bushes, meaning if someone had come through they were completely obscured from view. He huffed impatiently.

“Well Pal, if you did come through I haven’t got time to dig through this mess for you.” He dropped the bag on the ground. “Better hope you can learn fast.” Maxwell left, wondering if They’d just given him a false signal to rile him up, missing the faint glint of light off of a heavy orange bangle. Hours passed, and eventually Clarence sat up, clutching the side if his head. He stood shakily, looking about at bees the size of sparrows, horned rabbits, and what appeared to be a pigman screaming at spiders the size of cats. He slowly dropped his hand, blinking several times in a desperate attempt to change what he was seeing.

“What have I gotten myself into?”

_Dear God in Heaven, what has my cousin done?_

**Author's Note:**

> *Chews on fingernails.* I'm just gonna sit in my corner and pray, folks.


End file.
